


Loop

by kittenofdoomage



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 12:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12935628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittenofdoomage/pseuds/kittenofdoomage





	Loop

_ I can’t save her. _

It’s the only thought going round and round his head as he stares at the impossible situation before him. Her eyes are not her own, filtered through black,  but he knows she’s in there, that she’s aware, that she’s watching him decide if she lives or dies. There’s a smirk on her face, twisted and out of place, not hers in the slightest, and the fingers that curled around the knife to her throat are not controlled by her.

_ I can’t save her. _

Dean is going to have to watch her die. He can’t walk away and let her go, disappearing into the wind, the demon doing god-knows-what to her body, and her soul. His only hope is that he is fast enough to catch her before the knife sunk through her skin.

It had taken weeks to find her. Days to figure out how to trap her. And now, she’s trapped in this house, for the next few moments anyway. And he has to make a choice.

Run and keep her, maybe only for a few seconds. Or turn away and let the demon take her again. He can’t exorcise her - the demon will slit her throat before he got past “exorcizamus te”. Holy water wasn’t a long range weapon, and he had nothing else except his gun, which would only wound the demon unless it was a fatal shot.

_ I can’t save her. _

“Pathetic,” the demon spat, using her voice and her lips. It made his stomach churn with the need to puke that this  _ thing _ was twisting her like this, like a puppet. Her flesh made into a meat-suit of a puff of black smoke. “You’re just going to stand there and watch?” Her eyes - not Y/N’s - darkened. “The great Dean Winchester… do you like to watch, baby?”

He can’t choose, and he doesn’t want to speak to it other than to insult it. The woman he loves will either be dead or gone, and either way,  _ he can’t save her. _

“What’s your poison, Dean?” It’s digging the knife against her throat, turning the skin crimson with her blood, not enough to kill, but enough to send the red trickling down her throat like a tiny waterfall. “Walk away, or watch her die.”

“Why do you want her?”

It shrugged, looking nonchalant like they were discussing the cover of Entertainment Weekly. “Leverage. As long as I’m in control of her, you leave me alone.”

“I won’t stop coming after you,” Dean warned, shaking his head ever so slightly. “Just let her go.”

A pout was his response, but it wasn’t her pout. Rage filled him, and he wanted to charge the monster holding her hostage, even though it would be her death. The sound of electricity filled the air, and Dean felt the tiny hairs on his arms stand on end. Two prongs stabbed the demon in the side, and the vessel convulsed, dropping to the floor, the knife clattering out of her grasp. 

Sam emerged from the shadows, his hand holding out the taser gun as he recited the demon exorcism. Dean couldn’t hear him over the sound of his own movements, the blood thundering in his ears. As he reached Y/N’s body and pulled her close, leaning back as the ritual completed and black smoke poured from her nose and mouth.

She was still breathing when the room fell silent. Blood stained her neck and jaw, soaking into the thin white vest she wore underneath her jacket. Her eyes rolled back for a moment, and Dean lifted her into his arms, shaking her a little to try and bring her round.

Cough. Wheeze. There’s blood on the corner of her mouth now. Her eyes aren’t focused, and Dean starts to feel sick all over again.

_ I couldn’t save her. _

“Dean,” she whispers, like she’d just realized he was there. “Thought I saw you.”

Has it been so long since he’d held her? SInce he’d felt her skin against his? Weeks, the demon had her. Nights of sleeping alone without her warmth beside him. Meals passing in silence, because her happy chatter was absent from the bunker. The warmth was sucked out of his life the day she never returned from the grocery store.

She’s smiling now, reaching up a cold hand to touch his face. “I love you,” she whispered, and he can’t stop - the tears are escaping him, tracking down his cheeks and dropping onto her chilled skin. There’s only moments left for them.

“I love you too,” he whispered, shaking his head, as if he can deny what’s happening to him. He’s losing her, because he couldn’t save her. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she mumbled, clearly fading. Her hand leaves his face and drops to her side, and he knows he’s never going to feel her fingertips on his skin again. The color in her face is gone, and her breathing is so shallow, he can barely feel her chest rise.

Sam is standing behind them, and he knows the exact moment she stops breathing. Dean’s shoulders slump, and his entire body seems to vibrate with loss, grief, anger and everything in between. He doesn’t know what to do, so he just watches. Dean’s lost so much already; now he’s lost her.

They don’t speak when they carry her out to the Impala, gently laying her on the backseat as if she were sleeping. The injuries that caused her death aren’t visible - most likely the demon rode her hard enough to cause internal damage. Dean pauses for a moment to kiss her forehead, before he climbs into the driver’s seat, and Sam knows not to ask if his brother wants him to drive.

It’s a four hour drive back home. The sun is coming over the horizon as they pull into the leafy driveway of the bunker, and Sam remembers how much she’d loved the leaves and the colors, the excitement of the season. It would snow this year, and she wouldn’t get to see it.

The bunker is quiet. Too quiet. Dean lays her on their bed, cleans her up, still doesn’t speak. Sam wonders if he went this long without talking when their mom died. The digital clock on the nightstand clicks over to nine am, and the bedroom door furthest down the hall opens with a click, footsteps padding along the floor.

Little fingers clasp the doorframe, and Sam is there, sweeping the child off of the ground and carrying him towards the library before he can actually see anything. “Uncle Sam?”

John is seven years old now. He knows more than any seven year old should, and he’s about to go through a rite of passage that every Winchester seemed doomed to. “It’s okay, buddy. Let’s get you some breakfast.”

The boy wants to protest, but he’s still sleepy, and rubs his eyes, allowing his uncle to carry him through to the kitchen. He eats his Cheerios in silence, knowing  _ something _ is wrong, but not knowing what. Sam always hated that childlike precognition. Awareness without knowledge. Like the way babies stare into a corner.

Dean comes in, showered and clean, but looking no less wretched than he had. He sits opposite his son, and John looks up at him. “Did you find Mama?”

Of course he knows. He knew his mother was missing, and he knew she was in trouble. BIts and pieces of conversations, and a child who was far more intelligent than grown ups gave him credit for. He knows something is wrong.

Dean nods.

“What happened?” John sounds so much younger than his seven years. Terror laces his voice, as if he knows his father is about to tell him that he’ll never hear his mother’s voice again.

Dean knows that feeling all too well.

He sucks in a breath. Prepares himself for the loss of his son’s innocence, and the renewed path of vengeance another John Winchester had followed so long ago. It’s inevitable that history repeated itself. He tries to make his voice strong, because he has to be strong now, for their son. But it sounds so weak, so broken.

“I couldn’t save her.”


End file.
